Professional and Personal Development Skills Go Hand in Hand

Ever gone to one of those business opportunity hotel meetings and felt as though you were at a church revival? Listening to one testimonial after another; wondering how was this suppose to help your home business? I considered these as rah rah meetings. I don’t have time to listen to everyone saying how this industry had cultivated their professional and personal development skills.

My philosophy was “Just show me the fundamentals and I can take it from there”. I needed to find out how to run my own business, not personal development; therefore, I quit going to meetings and then quit all together.

Several years later, with the development of the internet, I was drawn back into network marketing. Surely, I will find the information on the web. I found attraction marketing to be intriguing — provide quality content and people will want to work with you. What a great concept! I joined a couple online marketing systems and learned the fundamentals of how to open social media accounts, write articles and submit to article directories MP3 Youtube.

Even though things were different from offline marketing (not having to attend hotel rah rah meetings), some were still the same. I would contact my sponsor to get more information and got the run around; and yes, you guessed it, I quit the marketing system.

I knew that attraction marketing was the answer, just needed to figure out how to apply the fundamentals. My persistence paid off and I met a mentor who took the time to further explained these principles and I was off to the races. I applied my new found knowledge on how to market on social media sites; generated a few leads, but I was not making any money. What was wrong with me? What was I missing? Why could I not grasp the concept of running my own business? So I (got ya) I did not quit this time; I did the smart thing and contacted my mentor.

He listened as I told him how I would excel in any J.O.B. I ever had in and out of the corporate world. Give me a task and I can find a more efficient method of operation. My voice was quivering, feeling like a fool talking to a business man about my personal feelings. Expressing how much I wanted to be in network marketing, helping others avoid the same mistakes as I had made. I told him I acknowledged that something had to change in me and asked for his help.

He said Personal Development is what I was lacking. The one area of business I have been trying to avoid. Since, everything else had failed, I had no choice but to listen to him. He suggested that I listen to Jim Rohn and read the book entitled Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I trust my mentor; therefore, I started working on me for once.

Being on a low budget, I could not afford to purchase Jim Rohn’s CDs. I went to YouTube and converted his videos into MP3 files and put them on my MP3 player. I would listen to him on the way to and from work, while I was ironing or washing the dishes. This way I was able to multi-task and saved my computer time for productive work.

Jim Rohn had two powerful phrases that caught my attention: 1) “It is difficult to pay the price when you cannot see the promise” and 2) “You cannot succeed by yourself”. What an eye opener! He stated that if you start associating with people you want to be like, they can show you the promise. Getting back with my mentor, he placed me in his mastermind group and I started talking to some top producers of the industry. Finally, I can see the promise and now ready to pay the price.

There is a passage in Hill’s book, Think and Grow Rich, where one gentlemen had a gold mine and seeing lack of results, stopped digging. Later, after abandoning the mine, it was discovered that he was only three feet from reaching the main gold vein. Three feet short of success. Three feet short of becoming a millionaire. Where would I be now if I just did not quit.

By immersing into my personal development, I discovered a lot about myself and why I kept failing — I would quit short of my goals. I realized that professional and personal development skills does go hand in hand.

Take the time and invest in both your professional and personal development skills because you are worth it. You may just find that final piece of the puzzle you have been looking for. I know I did!